Game

Lloyd loves me. He’s said so. He wants me in his life for the duration.

I’m sure he means it.

I’m sure he thinks he means it.

Don’t we always think we mean stuff, at the time? And then …

The buzzer heralds the arrival of my taxi. I slip my feet into stiletto heels and leave my mirror reflection to introspect alone.

It’s strange to stand outside the Peep Show frontage again. It’s even seedier-looking than I remember, several of the neon letters having malfunctioned so instead of being called KittyKat, it looks like K tt K t. The shiny reflective fabric in the window is torn in a few places. I wonder if passers-by could look directly in at the figure of a naked dancer. I’m almost tempted to put my eye to a

crack, but I don’t want to attract negative attention, or spend too much time on this cigarette-butt-strewn pavement, so I enter the building with as much purpose as I can muster.

The guy behind the counter doesn’t recognise me, but I remember him.

‘No jobs going,’ he says without looking up from his newspaper. ‘We got more girls than we can handle and not enough punters. It’s the recession, love. Sorry.’

‘No, I’m here for Mr Bulgarov.’

He looks at me properly. Is that a flicker of recognition? I hope not and look away.

‘Ah.’ He lets the word hang portentously in the air, giving me an insolent up-and-down inspection. He doesn’t say, ‘the whore’ but he’s thinking it. ‘In that case …’ He opens a door to the side of the counter and waves me up. ‘Top floor, love. Knock three times.’

I climb the rickety stairs, tripping over a couple of girls smoking on a landing, exchanging comfortless anecdotes about their last places of employment.

The top floor is a long way up. By the time I reach it, my ankles are about to give way and I have to take a moment so as not to make my entrance puffing like a steam train.

I can’t hear anything behind the thick reinforced metal of the door. I put my hand against it and try to push but it’s impenetrable, probably triple-locked, bolted and barred.

I put back my shoulders, lift my chin and knock three times.

There is silence, then rattles and clicks from the other side. A spyhole in the centre of the door is suddenly occupied by a big fish eye. I smooth my hands over the satin tux jacket and pout.

Eventually, the door is half opened. A kind of human cliff face stands in the space revealed, broad and vast and slablike.

‘Your name?’ he asks in a heavy accent of some kind.

‘Sophie.’

‘OK. Come in.’

The room is small and low lit. In one corner, there’s a bar area. Lloyd stands there, wiping tumblers with a tea towel. I don’t try to catch his eye. It’s much more important just now to get my bearings.

In the centre of the room, four men sit around a table, playing cards. Three of them are middle-aged while one is younger. He has a mean, sleek look about him. All of them project an aura of serious wealth, their wrists weighed down with chunky watches, their suits perfectly cut, fat Cuban cigars wedged between the lips of two of them. None of them looks at me. They are all too busy surveying their hands of cards or pushing piles of tokens around the table. A bottle of Grey Goose stands at the centre of play, ready to refill any empty glasses.

Already uncomfortable, I start to feel awkward. It’s embarrassing to just stand here, dressed for sex, while none of the men in the room display the slightest bit of interest in me.

Eventually, one of the older ones looks up. ‘Ah, you’re here,’ he says.

Self-evidently.

‘Uh, yeah,’ I say. ‘What do you want me to do?’

He sweeps his gaze around the other three players. ‘We thought you could add a little incentive to our game. We’re playing five hands. The winners of the first four get a sexual service of their choice. The winner of the fifth gets to take you home for the night. What do you say?’

Lloyd’s silence deafens me from across the room.

He wants me to say yes? He wants me to say no?